Getting In Shape

It’s never too late for getting in shape. You don’t have to join a gym and become a body builder. There’s plenty of ways you can get enough exercise to aid your Fitness Plan, and losing that bit of weight.

Of course, there is a simple formula to help calculate weight loss: consume fewer calories than what you burn every day. For example, if you consume 2000 calories per day and you burn 2500 calories per day, you might just say “Why don’t I just cut down on my calories intake considerably,” hence I don’t really have to burn many calories to lose weight?” Well that would be starving yourself and is not a good idea Your body needs food and calories to get energy. You need to eat enough so as not to starve yourself and be able to burn these calories and more after.

On the other hand, if you burn out the exact same amount of calories that you take, you will stay the same. The secret to keeping fit and losing weight without going hungry is to make the right food choices. You need to choose foods that are low in calories but can satisfy your stomach so you don’t become hungry.

We found a very interesting study that illustrates how the way we eat affects our weight. It was performed by New Zealand University of Aucklandin 1999.

The researchers divided male participants into three groups. Each group was put on a diet with different fat percentages (their total daily calories were composed of 60, 40 or 20-percent fat) but no calorie limits. The men were told to eat as much they wanted from the food choices they were allowed. As expected, the men eating the 20-percent fat diets lost weight because they were consuming fewer calories. Fat contains nine calories per gram compared to four calories per gram for carbohydrates or protein. Therefore, the more fat a food contains the more calories it will have. However, in spite of the lower calorie diet, the men in this group were not at all hungry.

What the researchers discovered was that the men in the low-fat group unconsciously compensated by choosing foods that weighed the same as the men in the higher-fat groups and, therefore, were not hungry.

What this suggests is that the weight of the food you eat may play a more important role than fat or calories in satisfying your hunger. In other words, you may not need to eat high-calorie or high-fat foods to feel full but your stomach has to feel the weight of a certain amount of food.

There are several other studies suggesting that people tend to eat the same weight of food daily, regardless of the fat or calories that the meals contain. It’s almost as if your stomach has an internal scale with a pre-determined weight that has to be reached for you to be satisfied and not hungry.

This may explain the rationale behind drinking a glass of water or having a bowl of soup before eating to cut down on your appetite. It may also explain why people can go on a low fat diet and yet gain weight if the majority of their food choices come from starchy food that is highly processed and low in fibre.

You can eat many slices of white bread before you feel full while eating two slices of whole wheat multi-grain bread already makes you feel like you swallowed the whole loaf. Eating high fibre foods like oatmeal helps you eat fewer calories (seven ounces of oatmeal only has 120 calories) and you won’t go hungry.